I'm cheating this week. I'm actually writing this five days prior to the given post date. With good reason: I'll be in Big Sky then, and I'll be waaaaaaay too busy skiing to sit around blogging.
Which leads me to today's topic: getting your ski gear ready for a flight. This is something I'm going to have to deal with in a day or two, so for me, it's top of mind. Oh, I know some people ship their stuff to where they're going in advance, but hey, I'm cheap. Plus I'm also a bit OCD about having my equipment with me. So I go through the agony of packing up, carting my stuff through the airport, and praying it makes it to where I'm going, along with the rest of my stuff.
First, I never ever never — did I say never? — check my boots. I've worked too hard to get them to fit properly, and if they were lost, I'd have to spend a day or more in rentals, which could wreak enough havoc on my feet to make the rest of my stay unpleasant. So I put boots in a carry-on. I also fill the carry-on with a change of ski clothes, so if my luggage gets lost I'll at least have clothing in which to ski. My bag of choice is a Transpack. The Transpack easily fits in the plane's overhead compartment. And since it's a backpack, it's easy to carry through the airport. The boots go in the boot compartments, and the clothes where the helmet ordinarily fits. Yes, I do bring a helmet. I just put it in my checked bag. Rightly or wrongly, I figure it's the one piece of equipment I could do without, if I had to. Plus it makes the Transpack easier to squish into the overhead.
There are loads of ski bags out there: singles, doubles, cloth, hard-shell, wheeled, unwheeled. A few years ago I got a Sportube. It's a hardshell, so it provides a measure of protection that cloth ones don't. And it's wheeled, so it's relatively easy to drag through the airport. My bag is a double, so it's big enough to carry both my and my husband's skis. I also surround the skis with base layers. This provides extra padding, and frees up my suitcase for other stuff.
And that's pretty much it. I also check a bag with my non-ski clothing. Now, I know some other Ski Divas just check their skis and bring everything else in a carry-on. I haven't mastered that yet (unfortunately), even though I don't bring a lot of stuff. As I said, there are many paths to the same goal: getting your gear to your destination. And as of right now, this is what works for me.
Next time I'll talk about Big Sky.
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